Schizoid Personality Disorder is a mental condition also called eccentric personality disorder. This is a personality disorder whereby the person suffering from this tends to be a loner. He/She doesn’t like interacting with people around him and stays aloof and indifferent. Because of this, these people do not have any friends or social contacts. In fact, such people usually tend to set their life patterns in such a way so that they come in minimum contact with the society. They otherwise perform fairly well in their jobs; however they can only work in the jobs that do not require much social contact. For example a librarian or a lab assistant would be the kind of job a person suffering from Schizoid Personality Disorder would prefer for him/herself.
The problem with these people is that they find it difficult to express themselves, in particular the expression of anger. They usually are very passive towards any situation they encounter in their day to day life. They do not possess any social skills and because of this they are seen as indifferent and hence are unable to make friends. They usually do not marry and live all their lives with their closest relatives mostly parents. Under stress they may at times experience psychotic episodes which are of small durations. However, if the time duration of such episodes increases then they might drift into another condition called Schizophrenia. So, on the whole people with Schizoid Personality Disorder appear to be functioning normally however, they exhibit eccentric and lonely behavior.
Specific symptoms that these people exhibit are:
They have reclusive lifestyle and jobs with minimum social contact.
Are unable to experience pleasure (even sex) and pain.
They do not enjoy the company of people, not even their closest relatives.
They do not have any social skills hence unable to form relations with others.
They are unable to respond to stressful situations and might even exhibit small psychotic episodes under stressful conditions.
They do not react to praise or censure.
They are day dreamers and fantasize about their inner complexities.
The exact cause of this disorder is still a mystery. Most of the researchers have two thoughts on it. Some feel it is genetic and others feel it could be induced by the environment around a person. Usually close relatives of people suffering from schizophrenia are suspected to be more susceptible to this disorder.
